<Begin Segment 50>

AI: Let me take you back to, still in the '40s. Because you were, you were still, you were working at the Preferred Insurance Company for a couple of years. And I wanted to ask you just a little bit about your working relationships there, and how you were received. Again, because when you first started working there, again, World War II was still going on. And I was wondering how, how you were treated?

EH: (Yes), it was interesting. I went to an employment agency, and in those days, I, I don't know whether it's true now, you had to pay thirty percent of your first month's wages to the employment agency for that fee. And I did that, and I hadn't had any office experience, actually. I did know how to type, but they, office people were desperate in those days because you could not get -- and that was a good thing for, for relocators, because you could get decent office jobs. And you know, on the West Coast, traditionally you can't, you couldn't get an office job unless you were working for a Japanese company of some kind. So here we were, it was, this was at the Board of Trade building in Chicago, which is fairly form-, and the relocation office was just a couple blocks away. But I got in there and met the file clerk supervisor, and she was really resistant. We went to the, the head person's office, and... Ruth somebody, I forgot, said, "I've never worked with anybody like that." And Mr. Howard said, "Well, it's your choice. You're (going to) work with her or you're not (going to) have a job." Something like that, and, and so she had to accept me. And it took a couple of days. She found that I wasn't (going to) lose files, and I, I had to go to another building even to retrieve files that were sent to another lawyer and stuff like that, and I managed to do that. And she probably stayed a couple of months while I was there, and then she decided she wasn't going to stay. And that was alright, so Mr. Howard asked me to take over the, the whole file department.

And it was a huge... Preferred is a fairly well-known company, and the Claims Department was a whole floor of the Board of Trade building. And so I said, "Well, Mr. Howard, I'm going to have to get some more help. And he said, "Can you find anybody else like you?" And so I said, "(Yes), I'll call the relocation office." And sure enough, that was no problem. They were delighted. In fact, one of the girls, top gals that I called, was a friend from Sacramento. She was younger than I was, but she was a whiz-bang. And generally they would come in as typists, but, and Miriam was a typist, but boy, when I couldn't find a file because one of the other clerks goofed it up, she systematically could find lost files. And at one time, I had to get two or three gals that were, would assigned, be assigned to certain adjusters. And they, they built up a good relationship, though I had a Southern gal hired, and she would say, "Oh, darlin', you don't mind if I crawl all over you," and she would just carry on like that all day, and everybody was either cracking up, or the men were just getting tired of that. And I had to take her aside and I, I said, "Dixie, you can't talk like that in an office. The men don't appreciate it." "What men don't appreciate that?" She was a military soldier's wife, and, coming in from Texas or somewhere. I really had a time training her right. She eventually -- I don't know whether her husband got transferred, but she was easy enough to work with, but that's, she was calling everybody "Darling," and I, you know, these old gray-haired men just really didn't like that. I, I had to tell her, "You have to be more business-like." And (she would say), "But that's the way we always talk in Texas." I, I (said), "I'm sorry, but this isn't Texas and we're not (going to) have that."

I had a couple of Nisei twins who, one was fine, but the other one was just, she was joking too much. But eventually, I had six or seven Nisei out of probably twenty-five. Well, twenty-five in the -- six or seven were mostly in the file cabinet, file department. But I, when Mildred Suzuki's husband abruptly called from New York, because he was just coming in from the, from the European Theatre, she was so excited and elated and, and just flying around, and she finally, Mildred said, after she was screaming on the telephone, and she hung up and she says, "So-and-so's home. I've gotta go. Mr. Howard, please, I gotta wash my hair, I gotta clean that apartment. I can't have him -- " and everybody was so impressed and so overjoyed. I mean, she was a nineteen-year-old, but a good model. And that just took everybody. So it's interesting how incidences like that really gel, and even the gruffest of guys, "Let her go, let her go, Howard. Let her go." It was, it was funny. But that was, was a fairly good experience, because it was interesting to see the girls, even my sister came in from Pennsylvania on her way to Berkeley, to U.C. Berkeley, and she needed a summer job. So I said, "Well, come on in and meet Mr. Howard." And so, she got a good, decent summer job.

I, Mr. Howard called me one, in one day and says, "Elaine, can you find a housekeeper for my wife?" And I, I went home and asked my mother if she had some Issei friends who wanted to do housework. And I didn't know where the Howards lived, but this midwife that had delivered my two youngest sisters was a good friend by the time evacuation came along, and (was) a neighbor. And I knew that Mrs. Oshita was living with her son and daughter-in-law in Rockford, Illinois, and I said to my mother, "I think they, the Howards live on the north end, but she's gotta learn to ride the bus and obasan doesn't speak any English." And so she said, "I'm going to call her. She really wants a job." She didn't want to be beholden to her son and daughter-in-law. And so her son drove her in -- or daughter drove her in to the specific address, north side, and they studied the bus schedule and all, and they figured out a way that she could commute. She actually was (going to) stay at the Howards' during the week and go home on the weekend. But here was this Issei woman, she didn't speak much English, but she managed to do that. And that worked out well, except that Mrs. Howard had to find out whether she could stay an extra day and exchange a day off for, during the week, and she would have to call me and say, "Would you ask Mrs. Oshita if she could do that?" And I thought it was marvelous that you could work in the same house and not be able to communicate to that extent. But they managed, and she, Mrs. Oshita would come over once in a while and give me great details about how -- I never met Mrs. Howard, but I learned a lot about the kids and, and how things went. Mrs. Oshita, I knew came into Chicago once in a while, because she had to have tofu. And she was bound and determined to take tofu home to, to Rockford. But, and so she dropped in once in a while on Sundays and things. That's the kind of fun thing to do. She was, she was lost in Chicago once, and she said she was so grateful that some Niseis stopped her and could tell she was, she was lost. And they saw to it that she got on the right streetcar. But that must have happened to a lot of Isseis in those days.

AI: Well, it sounds like your experience at Preferred Insurance was very positive in most ways.

EH: (Yes), I think, I think it was. I, when my father died, and I had to go to Sacramento, I told my mother to come in and meet Mr. Howard, 'cause (of) Mrs. Oshita's experience. And so it was the first time my mother had been in the big forty-two, forty-two-story building. And, but she was fluent enough in English and could converse.

<End Segment 50> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.